Tuesday, 29 November 2011

One out, ALL OUT

I'm old enough to remember when the Unions really did have the power to bring the country to its knees. Management would carefully and warily tread their way around them lest a shop steward decide that actually working was not in the interests of the Comrades and everyone downed tools. Remarkably, it didn't make them rich or society equal. It just ended up in misery for all concerned. I was also a member of a Union (I had no choice) once and since that day have utterly detested them and pretty much all they stand for.

So tomorrow will see our "public servants" striking to defend their slice of the Government pie when the rest of us have already worked out that the Government is not to be trusted with our pensions and have quietly made our own provisions for old age via property or investments. They will march and scream and stamp their feet, the soundbites of vital public services being decimated will broadcast across the airwaves and Socialists, simply unable to believe that they didn't win the election will rant and demand we do as they say or else.

I have no problem with anyone striking. Go for it. In all honesty, most of the public sector already withholds their labour by ringing in sick 10 times a year on average, one more day won't be noticed. Except of course, should your position be outsourced in the near future, any private HR manager worth his salt will be looking through the attendance records of any staff he is expected to take off the State. Having "absent" on November 30th 2011 is pretty good indicator of work ethic, loyalty and value to any potential private employer.

Should you encounter any donkey jacketed placard waving dinosaurs on your travels tomorrow, hand them one of these:

To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonoured. That is government; that is it's justice; that is its morality.